The truth though, is that doing what you’ve been doing is going to get you what you’ve been getting. If the narrative is getting in the way, if the archetypes you’ve been modeling and the worldview you’ve been nursing no longer match the culture, the economy or your goals, something’s got to give.

To become more successful as a lawyer and to attract and retain more clients, you have to be willing to make changes that may seem uncomfortable at first. In the The Last Lecture late author and professor Randy Pausch said it well:

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

I found it interesting to reflect on the decisions I made as I played my hand during my career. I wrote them down in My Career Decisions. As you will see, my decisions, especially those involving moving my family, would not work for most of you. But, you will also see that for the most part, I played the cards I was dealt by expanding the narrative.

Every human has four endowments- self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… the power to choose, to respond, to change.

What are the cards you have been dealt? Are you stuck in that narrative? How have you played the hand you were dealt? What important career and life decisions have you made, or will you make soon? What is the most important change you want to make now?